Custom Map #286: Undiplomatic Immunity. By: planetfall

[AutoPost]

This topic is for discussion of map #286: Undiplomatic Immunity


Author: planetfall
Size: 150x100

Desc:
[PF #10] Enemies that can be destroyed? We can't have that. Well, not much, anyway. #CRPL #CustomEnemy #Digitalis #Runners #NoSpores #TechLimits #PFSeries

[Flabort]

Yay! Time to play!

[TLMike]

PF: I think some of those Black Hole missiles are a little OP. I was making some pretty decent headway on assaulting the main island, and at about 29 minutes, a missile landed on one of my PCs with a Vortex so large that it wiped out the entire map. I had to start the map again from the beginning.

[planetfall]

PF: I think some of those Black Hole missiles are a little OP. I was making some pretty decent headway on assaulting the main island, and at about 29 minutes, a missile landed on one of my PCs with a Vortex so large that it wiped out the entire map. I had to start the map again from the beginning.

First thing: The size of the black hole is determined by the number of units it consumes, the missiles themselves are not OP. The holes spawn from the missiles with a radius of something like 4-5 cells.

The moment you hear the singularity-weapon-sound and warning sound simultaneously, immediately pause, look for the black hole, and move units out of the area, and destroy immobile units near it. I had one land on my first run through the map (I won, but had to fix bugs and replay) and I waited a second or two after the missile landed. Even with that it destroyed a good portion of my forward base, but I was able to rebuild--that's what factories are for.

Though I'll try making them grow a bit slower to give players more time to react.

[TLMike]

I hadn't realized that it had targeted a group of PCs I landed on the main island. And I had the game in 4x time. So you can imagine how surprised I was when every single thing on the map was gone in the blink of my eyes.

[chwooly]

PF: I think some of those Black Hole missiles are a little OP. I was making some pretty decent headway on assaulting the main island, and at about 29 minutes, a missile landed on one of my PCs with a Vortex so large that it wiped out the entire map. I had to start the map again from the beginning.

First thing: The size of the black hole is determined by the number of units it consumes, the missiles themselves are not OP. The holes spawn from the missiles with a radius of something like 4-5 cells.

The moment you hear the singularity-weapon-sound and warning sound simultaneously, immediately pause, look for the black hole, and move units out of the area, and destroy immobile units near it. I had one land on my first run through the map (I won, but had to fix bugs and replay) and I waited a second or two after the missile landed. Even with that it destroyed a good portion of my forward base, but I was able to rebuild--that's what factories are for.
Though I'll try making them grow a bit slower to give players more time to react.

Don't beams take out the missiles?

[TLMike]

Certainly they do. But, the missile in question targeted a PC in motion and was outside the range of my beams*.

*

I positioned in the beams in such a way that they did not target the Runners with shields, because I wanted their ammo to go toward hitting missiles, not runners.

[close]

Also! PFall: does the upgrade script for emitters eventually top-out, or can emitters actually end up emitting more than 2147 units of creeper? Or do they flip to AC?! That'd be fun :>

[TLMike]

They do XD!

[Flabort]

 :o
We're gonna be seeing a couple really really low scores where people exploited that, aren't we?

[planetfall]

:o
We're gonna be seeing a couple really really low scores where people exploited that, aren't we?

For the strongest emitter to get that powerful, the forge would have to cycle through all its settings 27 times, and by that point, each missile launcher would be firing 10 missiles at once. Runners would basically be fast enough to teleport to any bit of digitalis they liked, flamethrowers would have maxed range, shields would recharge almost instantly, and the corrupted forge would be receiving enough aether to make it all even worse even faster. Having to deal with all that, plus get a low score in the process, in exchange for massive amounts of useless AC, isn't really an "exploit."

Though a quick calculation tells me that, if the player doesn't destroy any totems, this would take only about 48 minutes of game time to occur.

[Lost in Nowhere]

Ok, I'm going to run it on 4x speed for 12 minutes... This should be interesting.

[Katra]

Killing the flamethrowers behind the corrupted forge was a royal pain in the tail. After several tries I was finally able to decoy the flamethowers enough to get a nullifier built on one of the PZs left from the missile launchers. (By flying in lots of cannons - on the successful attempt I redirected cannons in flight to the spots where other cannons were destroyed.)

[planetfall]

Killing the flamethrowers behind the corrupted forge was a royal pain in the tail. After several tries I was finally able to decoy the flamethowers enough to get a nullifier built on one of the PZs left from the missile launchers. (By flying in lots of cannons - on the successful attempt I redirected cannons in flight to the spots where other cannons were destroyed.)

Not sure exactly how you approached it, but basically the best course of action is to attack the forge right after destroying the central emitter and nest. If you let the forge stay around too long, the flamethrowers' range will get upgraded to the point you described. (I made this mistake while testing the map and did the exact same thing.)

[Jamz]

Fantastic map. Finally the weekend gives me a chance to play. :D

I remember someone mentioning in some topic somewhere how quite often in CW3, it's often just about getting the right start in the map and thereafter it becomes rather straightforward. That's something I would also agree with in majority of cases.
But not with your maps, and especially with this one. The map has a somewhat trickyish start and then once you cross that void, it becomes a whole new challenge to firstly survive there without your units getting blown up, then to take out the flamethrowers presents its own challenge and that section in the top left with the AET and flamethrower runners. And not forgetting to mention the huge and constantly increasing threat from the missiles (especially the Dark Hole ones). All these factors made the map such that it wasn't just about getting the right start but also maintaining and ensuring you always made the right moves.

Again, really disappoints me to see a rating which isn't at least an 8. Probably because of the difficulty but again, I really feel that the way you made this map was quite genius.

Thanks a lot for these great maps PF. :)

[tornado]

In all honesty I don't even know WHERE and HOW to START

(Note:caps lock=emphasis not scream/shouting)